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ROME — Cats have prowled the streets of Rome since ancient times, more recently finding refuge
with an association of volunteers who have lovingly tended to thousands of strays over the years
amid the ruins of a site where Brutus is thought to have stabbed Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.

The shelter, in an underground space abutting a cherished archaeological site, consists of
several bright, cage-lined rooms that hold dozens of strays at a time and has gained fame — and
donations — as a popular tourist draw.

But after a couple of decades of tolerated, if not quite authorized, occupancy, Italy’s state
archaeologists have told the association it has to go, saying the illegal occupation risks damaging
a fragile ancient monument.The cat lovers say they have no intention of leaving.

What has ensued is a fight that has drawn in a host of city officials, elicited a flood of email
from upset cat lovers and revealed a deeper clash between tradition and legality that has tested
Rome’s notions of its cultural heritage.

The battle has pitted preservation officials who struggle mightily to get Italians to obey laws
protecting their historic birthright against an especially feisty Roman breed of cat caretakers —
the so-called
gattare.

In the middle are the cats,
i gatti, who have been officially declared “part of the city’s bio-cultural patrimony,”
noted Monica Cirinna, a lawmaker with the Democratic Party who created an animal-rights advocacy
department.

Rome has countless cat colonies, usually cared for by neighborhood
gattare who leave plastic plates of cat nibbles in communal courtyards or on
sidewalks.

Then there are more organized volunteer associations for larger colonies of feral cats, some in
archaeological sites, including one at the Pyramid of Cestius, from the first century B.C., and
another at Trajan’s Market, where
gattare have been given a room within the ancient area. But they have official
authorization.

The cat shelter does not, say the state archaeology officials, who are trying to close it two
years after it made the apparently fatal mistake of applying for a permit to install a toilet. That
put the shelter on the officials’ radar, and they now insist it has to go even though — with just
basic equipment like cages, medical cabinets, ramshackle furniture and garbage bins — it is far
better organized than the others.

The shelter, which cares for 150 to 180 cats at a time, is near the Area Sacra of Largo
Argentina, a downtown archaeological site consisting of four Republican-era temples. The shelter
sits directly above the remains of the travertine podium of what archaeologists identify as Temple
D, a structure from the second century B.C.